After reading Darling-Hammond’s chapter one and watching Mr. Holland’s Opus, there are many questions that stuck in my mind. In the past, America was number one in education rank and today it is falling behind many countries. America did not reach the top because other countries had lack of education but because they had experts who could see the future.
Where are they today? Can the experts build a platform for youth to express themselves by providing education policy that prepare students for the future? In all education systems, we need to emphasize on the usability of the skills in real life.
The public schools perform poorly compared to private schools because the educators are not concerned about the child’s understanding of the subject. This is due to the fact that there are very few teachers in public schools hence the teachers are overwhelmed by the growing number of learners that they are assigned, and that’s why they just teach for the sake of performing their tasks.
This failure by public schools is reflected on the grades that the learners achieve. According to Darling-Hammond (2010), in private schools there are many teachers that are able to attend to individual needs of every child. By handling the learners differently the teachers are able to identify the weaknesses of these children and hence they take measures that boost the child’s understanding.
In America people come from different cultures and since English is the official language there are so many people who can barely construct a sentence in this language. This language barrier becomes a big problem in learning institutions because it hinders the learning process since a learner cannot grasp anything unless he/she understands the language used in teaching.
Some schools especially private schools incorporate lessons that are taught in vernacular languages to boost learners understanding. The US needs to accommodate different cultures and abilities by increasing the number of inclusive classrooms in learning institutions.
Most critics argue that the quality of education in the US is so poor because the schools are not strict about the requirements necessary for admission hence there are so many people who posses degrees but they are not of any help to them because the skills that they were taught in school can not be applied in real life situations.
This is why many people rely on employment because from the initial stages of learning they were made to believe that success in career can only be achieved through employment.
The developed countries have revised their curriculums to incorporate courses that can help the learners to start their own businesses. Additionally, the educators in the US are conservative because they still use the old modes of teaching, unlike their counterparts in developing countries who are trained on regular basis on the emerging trends in education.
In Mr. Holland’s Opus, the training that the teachers receive is further extended to their students because they incorporate what they are taught in training seminars into their work (Herek, 1995). Moreover, the developing countries are concerned about future goals in improving the quality of education as opposed to the American system that does not consider the future because they are only interested to being ranked the best in education in the present time.
That’s why countries like Singapore have stable economies because their education system encourages the learners to be creative and indeed Singapore is quite advanced in industrialization and of late that country has become a business hub because they manufacture so many products.
In fact the US has been accused of draining the brains of other countries because it grabs the intellectuals of developing countries and offers them jobs in its universities and other sectors thus the skills that would have helped their countries are tapped by the US. In essence, the US has enough funds; hence the only thing that is lacking and needs improvement is the strategic methods of revising the curriculum and hiring of more teachers.
References
Darling-Hammond, L. (2010).The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future. New York: Economic Policy Institute and Teachers College.
Herek, K. (Director) and Duncan, P.S. (Producer and Writer). (1995). Mr. Holland’s Opus. [Film]. Universal City: PolyGram Filmed Entertainment.